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Topic: Gothic Space Horror (Read 97843 times)

Maurice left the mess at a casual pace, hands in pockets. Well, by the sound of this mission, he wouldnt have to go on any more runs after it. Upon entering the engineering bay he, out of habit, glanced up at the Engine credentials, double-checking the system. With a grunt which could have meant anything from approval to distate at Pockets' work, he went ahead with his own tasks. "I didn't imagine you would be engineer." He commented in neutral tones

Pockets shrugged, her attention on the engine. "I get that a lot." Well, so far so good. She'd already located a good place to hang on when the ship lifted, but that wouldn't be necessary until they actually did. She had to admit, someone had taken good care of this baby. "I love these things. Don't suppose they'll let me soup it up, though."

Pliers paused in his work, glancing to Pockets with a raised brow at her mentioning of 'souping it up'. After a couple seconds, he gave a lopsided, perhaps sardonic smile, "Somehow, I don't think so. But, you are the head engineer, which means anything that happens with the mechanics of this ship? The blame falls on you." He turned back to study the system schematics again, "Which, incidentally, is why I prefer bieng assistant."

The ship responded to the attitude correction slowly. She was a heavy beast and handled accordingly. In the engineering department, the fusion core come online, the magnetic field indicators flickered on. The meters ran low, but as the power levels increased, the meters rose into the normal zone.

After thirty seven seconds, the engine reached operational power levels, producing enough power to light the entire western coast of the old United States. More lights flickered on. The back up reactor, a fissionable type powered by the destruction of enriched uranium clicked green, on standby.

Only a barely discernable hum indicated that the fusion reactor was running. Only a few meters of reinforced metal and magnetic fields protected the ship from the sustained nuclear blast.

"All stations report..." The captain said, engaging the intercomm down into the engineering room.

"Ballard, you are clear to exit the space dock..." A voice crackled through the headset of the communications station.

"Repeat, you are clear to exit the space dock...all space lanes are open and you are clear for Europa destination at heading zero-five-five by nine-four-zero. Repeat all space lanes are open and you are clear for Europa destination at heading zero-five-five by nine-four-zero."

"Have a good trip Ballard, and godspeed." The communications towers clicked off, and the magnetic grapples holding the Ballard in place disengaged. Seven umbilicals that fed power to the ship also rotated and seperated from the hull. She was on her own internal power, and homeostasis systems.

Autonomic functions engaged seemlessly. The O2 system activated under its own power, and the AEG-35 antenna array started standard calibration procedures.

Pockets raised an eyebrow. "I take care of my babies. I've never had a problem I couldn't fix, one way or another. And if anyone does anything to intentionally hurt this ship, I'll break their d**n neck."The intercom clicked on, signalling the final pre lift sequence."Engineering Reporting. Fusion core online, magnetic field showing green across the board. Operational power is go. Back up reactor standing by. All systems normal. Ready when you are, Command." Pockets's tone was all business, but she couldn't wait to get underway. She flicked off the intercom. "That's wierd. Did you see that little hiccup in the reactor output? We might should take a look at once we get underway.

Hue sat their pateintly counting the second, at thirty seven the fusion reactor thrummed to life sending vibrations. At forty three he felt the umbilical cords detatch. Taking into account the Capitain and everyone else the age of this ship at seventy seven the ship accelerate. He began counting again in his head again, seventy...

Micky looked to Severin. She then contacted the Captain. "Captain this is the Helm, Everything is green and clear. Installing cooridinates Europa zeo-five-five by nine-four-zero." She then reached forward and laid her hands uopn the control. Waiting for the Captain's signal. From what she could tell this ship was shaping up to have a real good crew.

Ao Vongphachanh, Laotian by birth but Lunar by raising, sat uneasily in Albert's Place, one of a few beer-soaked dives in the Central Living Area of Tybee Base, awaiting the arrival of his soon-to-be fellow crewmember."One more," he said to the bartender, and considered the strange circumstances which brought his upcoming job to him. Odd, that. He had been moving out of his ex-boyfriend's house, when, blown on the winds of the oxygen distributers, a shred of rubber-paper came drifting down into his luggage. Having already given Don a farewell kiss, and stepping into the cab, he discovered the shred lying like an invitation.It read:

TO LOCAL SHUTTLE-LICENSED PILOTS- Needed: Crewmen for the S.S. Ballard. Required- individuals who are shuttle-licensed and space trained, preferably ex-military, but civilians also welcome. Reply at Earth Contact Webnode 12 #gstern@833A-sternship.Be discreet please.

And that was that. Contact number, apply for job, ask about pay. Three weeks ago, that was. Today was the day. He tapped his fingers nervously and took a swallow of beer.Where was his crewmate?

Taget exited the men's room. He did a belt check and bounced a bit to make sure the bits were in place. He ran his hand over his 1 cm long military cut blond hair. He rubbed his tired blue eyes with their bizzare flecks of gold.

He was still too sober. Couldn't get drunk while on duty, but before is never a problem. He was supposed to meet up with his other pickup. They might be here and he just missed them. He shrugged his thick combat pilot styled synth leather jacket tight over his massive shoulders, picked up his gear bag with M Taget stenciled on the side, and strode out into the room.

He was tired of all this... busting his butt to get civilian gigs that pay squat... moving from one dead end job to another... ending up in different dives on different planets that were exactly the same. Maybe this time it will be different.

Power surged to the four massive ion engines that drove the ship forward through space. The Ballard almost drifted out of the space dock, her pace liesurely as she responded to the coordinates entered into the helm.

The ship pitched her nose up as if left the dock, moving with a whale-like grace. Manuevering jets fired, turning the 350 meter long ship out away from the sun, and pointed her nose out into the darkness of deep space.

Hue reached a count of ninety two when the engines truely came to life. There was a subtle vibration through the hull as the ion engines electrified and tore ammonia molecules down into a cloud of electrons, and and other atomic particles at the rate of one ton every two minutes. The blast pushed the ship forward with increasing acceleration.

Compared to a military scout, or even fighter, the Ballard was ponderous and slow, but compared to the greater majority of civilian craft she was a rocket. G force compressed the crewmembers into their G seats and improvised positions.

The pressure increased as the Ballard accelerated away from the Earth, leaving behind a quickly dissipating contrail of electrified vapor. The acceleration topped out at 6 Gees, and leveled off, the engines reducing their output until they reached a steady 1.10 G burn.

"Well done." The captain said, unstrapping from his seat. "We should prepare for decceleration into Europan space in twenty seven hours. At ease crew."

The air vent made a burping sound as somewhere an airseal rattled. THe ventilators and the ducts were ancient, and Alberts Place was in one of the older sections of Tybee that hadnt been rennovated in perhaps sixty or seventy years. However, the beer was cheaper there than anywhere else on the frozne piece of ice and hell that most foreigners called Europa.

Albert served the two space jocks their beers in semi-soft plastic shells, the kind that were recycled back to the distributor and refilled. The beer could be an hour old in the bottle, and would taste fifty years old, but in Alberts, a man could afford more than one in a sitting.

"Wont be much long now, eh Vong?" Albert asked, having given up trying to pronounce the Lunar Laotians first name. "Bally is supposed to be pulling in sometime today."

"Since this is your last beer with me for a while lad, this one is one the house." Albert said.

"That is 'ow vohng-fah-chahn'," said Ao, and nodded towards the Captain and Taget. "My understanding is that this is to be a mission passed Uranus, yes?" His slight Lunar accent made his words somewhat nasal and long-spoken, making "yes" into "yeese".

Hue mentally kicked himself for letting the old habit of being on one ship you've seen them all, he had forgotten how old the Ballard was incomparison to the troop transports. When the call for at ease finally came Hue was glad to get up, the sick bay looked in order so he nodded a good bye to Lt. Marney and headed for one of the many exercise centers on the ship.

It was important to remember to work out on the ship, even the short time he spent in null g had weekened him a little. Five minutes of twsiting corridors later he was jagned into a pair of old sweat pants and a white beater and pumping the machines. Space craft didn't have irons that could float around dangerously in dock so they had mahcines that could apply pressure same way one could use free weights. There several other types of execise equipement so you could work you r entire body if needed.

Pockets looked over at the readouts, satisfying herself that everything would be okay for a few minutes. "I'll be back in a minute or two." She galloped through the maze of corridors, heading for the captain's quarters. She scrawled a tag to attatch to her gun -"Pockets Domino"- and deposited it in the drop box. She assumed that, should trouble break out, the captain was sane enough to return it when necessary. Then she went back to engineering. She looked at the readouts again. That little hiccup from the reactor output still bothered her, but getting into the inner workings of a reactor was a complicated, dangerous, and terribly long process. She wasn't quite that worried yet, and so she resolved to keep an eye on it.

Micky was please with how smooth the ship handled it'self. Even the Cataran hadn't handled this well. Leaning back in her seat she made the readjustments to the controls. She checked the forward sensor readouts, everything was clear. They would arrive at Europa with the next eight hours. She sighed. This was actually shaping up to be a pretty descent mission, despite the uneasiness earlier. Flying through open space was easy, a trained monkey could do it. It was the docking procedures that took alittle more finesse.

Taget saddled up to the bar. He slipped onto the bar stool with a practiced ease. He took the offered Bulb and drank deeply.

"We go wherever the boat goes. But yah, we fly far system this trip. I have not been out that way in...... well .... ummm. Tanj. It has been a long time."

He took a drag from his bulb.

"I've been on this style of ship before. It should get us there. "

He took another drag from his bulb.

"Its just a job, it's not some fricken adventure. Exciting space travel is only found in holos (movies). Most of the time it is soul crushing bordom punctuated by a few interesting moments as something goes wrong and we fricken try to fix it before the ship crashes or blows up or goes no atmo or some other tanjed up disaster."

He crushed his bulb and sent it flying to the recycle bin.

"Oh well. It beats being unemployed. Barkeep. How about another? So why you want to be on this boat?"

"Maestly for the cash. And, for sommink to do. I have been somewhit bored in the past few cycles."Ao eyed the dregs of the plastic bulb critically and followed Taget's example, though he rather missed."Is the Ballard a nuvo ship, Captain?"

"New? the Bally?" Albert asked with a laugh. "I served two missions on her when I was just a whip of a boy. Shes eighty years old if she is a day." he said with a laugh, pausing to pick up the crushed beer bulb and drop it into the recycling chute. It made a hollow noise as it was drawn into one of the holding compartments somewhere below.

"Laid keel in '24, served thirty years before her first refit, and not a finer ship in the fleet, you hear me. It was d**n near an honor to serve on her. Got a major refit in '56, replaced her engines completely and the power core was completely rebuilt. That was alot of dock work back then, pulling a full size fusion core out of her and rebuilding it.

"Got another refit in '91. Not so much as the first refit, but it was a good going over, replaced two of the ion engines, refitted her into a search and rescue vehicle since there were already faster and more maneuverable ships coming into service. She is still a fine ship." Albert said as he passed Taget another bulb of beer.

"I did hear she was going on a deep mission, but nothing much besides that, if I were a gambling man I'd bet on something classified getting lost. Otherwise, there is news all about it. Havent had a ship lost in something like eight months, and that was the Lorenzo, but she just lost her antenna. Pulled into dock a week late."

"Skizzer? I'll tell you that ship hasnt had a single catastrophic failure in her 80 years. She hasnt lost more than a single engine in all of her missions. You wont find a better ship in the fleet." he said with a strong note of pride.

"As for departure, depends on the skipper. Might be today, might be crast. Refueling might only take four or five hours, and restart another hour, but if hes a good one, he will let his crew take one last day of R and R before running a deep mission." Albert said.

Micky remained at the control. Being the pilot was for the most part was..very very very boring. She sighed. She checked a for more readouts. Everything was still good. They would be arriving at Europa soon. She couldnt wait. Her legs could use a bit of a stretch. She stretched the best she could there in the pilot's seat. Arching her back until it popped, much to her satifaction. She sat back, She rubbed her face briefly, waking the nerve endings back up. She then looked to the Captain. "Europa ETA in 5" Meaning they were still 5 hours away. "Permission to take a short break, Sir"

"Granted." The captain said to Micky. He keyed the intercomm to the medbay.

"Corpsman Long, report to the bridge." he said into the link.

"Corpsman, take the helm. The pilot has requested a short break. Just keep her steady, and Lt. St. George will bring her into the dock at Europa." he said.

"Have any of you made a Jupiter run?" The captain asked. Already the disc of Jupiter dominated the forward holographic display. The planet hung huge and heavy in the sky. The bands of orange, white, and brown all moved slowly, eddies and vortices churning between them, each dwarfing even the most massive terran hurricane.

By three hours to arrival, more than 3/4 of the screen was planet, and the sensors sang with the EM noise generated by the planet. It was a haunting sound reminescent of whalesong and static. The tiny Io was slightly ahead of them, and the Ballard would pass within 100,000 km of the noxious moon. The small moon passed as the auto pilot engaged the braking thrusters to slow the Bally down enough to dock safely.

One of the screens flickered as an arc of lightning jagged from the upper most cloud layer, meeting another jagged flash erupting from the sulpherous moon. If there was an atmosphere, the thunderclap might have crushed buildings, turned unarmored targets into rubble.

"That is why we havent built anything on Io. Everything on that moon develops a charge opposite of Jove. Then the lightning hits. Lost sixteen ships to those strikes, power systems are killed, engines offline, power core shutdown. The wrecks get pulled down by gravity, dont have much time to pull a rescue, and one of the sixteen is a rescue ship, gone." he said. He held his skippers cap over his breast.

He keyed the intercomm again, this time for the whole ship.

"Attention crew, we are entering close jovian space. Anyone who cares to come take a look on the bridge is welcome to. ETA one hour."

Lond sat up a little worn with a bulb of water, take the helm?! Was this guy crazy. Hue made his way to the bridge, Hue slid into the consel, "So what do I do sir? I'm a marine medic, I'm not even close to familiar with these controls."

Hue looked tentalively at the controls with a surgeon critical eye, yup this captain was crazy.

Micky leaned over Hue's shoulder and pointed out which controls were for what. "Just keep her steady" She then turned a left the bridge. Stopping off in her quarters she grabbed a quick shower and a change of clothes. The shower had been refreshing. Micky took a lap or two around the corridors of the ship. Stretching her legs. A short time later Micky returned to the bridge and relieved Hue of his temporary post. She settled back down into the seat. "Thanks for keeping her warm for me Hue." She gave him that charming grin of her's. Within the hour, Lt. St. George pilotted the Ballard into the dock at Europa after receving docking information from the tower. Final read outs were checked. And everything was green. "Docking Sequence complete. Ladies and Gentlemen. Welcome to Europa." She swiveled the pilot's chair to look at the Captain. Everything was locked down and secured. She sat awaiting orders.